Greek God

Zeus was called the master of the gods, and "father of men." The
title may be more impressive than meritorious; it seemed applicable
to the Zeus of the philosophers who regarded him as a supreme god and
sculptor
of the universe. The notion was not primitive; Zeus was master of men as
Agamemnon was the half-imposed, half-elected king of the Achaeans. Within
this capacity he was the guarantor of contracts, oaths, the protector of
guests that was involved in the human activity unfolding beneath his
vigilant
gaze.

Zeus was the sky and thunder god in greek mythology. The mighty deity was
thought to be god of the sky and master of the celestial
fire, a side of Zeus' personality that the Homeric verses amply portrayed.
As "king" of heaven he exercised a sort of providence; but his
will was held in check by the immutable laws of fate, and his rule was
often
limited by these laws and respected. Although inhibited by this
restriction,
Zeus could govern and follow a policy; his decisions were rarely arbitrary
or set forth with passion; they corresponded to hidden intentions, the
wisdom
of which was ultimately revealed. He was the ultimate dispenser of good
and evil to all mortals.

Zeus was the son of Cronus and his sister,
Rhea. Also from this relationship had came Hestia,
Demeter, Hera,
Hades, and Poseidon.
But a curse had been put on Cronus, who being of a dishonest and violent
nature, when he refused to plicate Gaea after he
had turned his father off of the thrown. Instead of setting free his
brothers,
condemned by Uranus never to see the light of day, Cronus kept them shut
away in their subterranean prison, which enraged Gaea. Gaea vowed that he
would know the very fate that he had put upon his father by being
dethroned
by his own children. So in order to protect himself from this curse he
devoured
his offspring as soon as Rhea bore them. The first five he swallowed, but
when Zeus was born Rhea decided to save the child. With Gaea's help she
found shelter in a Cretan cave where she delivered the infant. Then taking
a stone Rhea wrapped it in swaddling clothes and took it back to Cronus,
who, without question, seized it and swallowed it. Zeus had been saved,
and with the same stroke Cronus sealed his own fate.

The young Zeus grew from infancy in the cave being nursed by the nymphs
of Amalthea, and protected by the Curetes, which mean "Young men,"
who were warriors with spears and shields that performed a war dance
around
the grotto. This was to drown out the infant's wailing so Cronus would not
discover that he had been tricked and devour his son. In this instance,
it appears, as frequently happened, the myth grew from a rite: a ritual
war dance was practiced in Crete, also in other Hellenized countries, by
people imitating the supposed actions of the spirits of the storm in the
mountains and sky; such dancing probably gave rise to Rhea's ruse.

While being protected Zeus matured receiving all of his divine powers.
When the time came for Gaea's prophecy to be fulfilled Zeus consort was
Metis, a daughter of Oceanus, whose name means "Prudence" or more
often "Perfidy." She gave him a drug that would make his father
vomit up the five children that he had previously devoured and still
carried
in his body. They all emerged, and with these allies Zeus attacked Cronus
and his comrades, the Titans. The war in which they battled each other
lasted
ten years. Finally, Gaea's oracle promised Zeus victory if he would accept
help from the monster that Cronus had imprisoned in Tartarus. Zeus agreed,
thus permitting Gaea's wish that Cronus disregarded. Zeus delivered the
monsters and was victorious. Accounting for this victory were the weapons
that the monsters gave to the young gods that in the future would bear
their
emblems, which included the thunderbolts that the Cyclopes forged for
Zeus.
Cronus and the Titans were then confined in the depths of the underworld
and took the place of the monsters who became their guards.

Hesiod's Theogony, written shortly after 700 BC, relates the most
accepted
tradition regarding the birth and childhood of Zeus. But there were
others:
Arcadia in particular prided itself on having been the cradle of this god.
It became easy to deduce the past-Hellenic Zeus was formed by absorbing
many local "great gods." For example, in Crete itself Zeus probably
replaced a vegetation god, since the Cretans exhibited a "tomb of Zeus,"
and few but vegetation deities were believed to be subject to periodic
deaths
and rebirths.

Zeus, the supreme sky-god of the Greeks and a composite figure, was
believed
to be involved in the daily affairs of people, but was never thought of
as a creator deity. As Hesiod notes, the origins of things were related
in other myths concerning Uranus, the sky, and Gaea, the earth. The Dorian
invasion of Greece around 1200 BC resulted in the superimposition of the
Indo-European sky father cult on an indigenous Minoan-Mycenaean tradition
in which the earth goddess was predominant, just as in India the Aryans
submerged the Hindus valley culture. Even though traces of pre-Greek
tradition
are seen in Hera being the wife of Zeus, it was he as Nephelogeretes, "the
cloud gatherer," who reigned over all things. He was given other names
as well that depicted his different aspects and functions; they included
Ombrios, "rain god"; Kataibates, "the descender"; Keraunos,
"lightening"; Gamelios, "god of marriage"; Teleios,
"giver of completeness"; Pater, "father"; and Soter,
"savior." Hades, the god of the dead, and Poseidon, the god of
the sea, were distinguished from Zeus because their powers were seen as
extensions of his in their special realms. They were granted separate
mythical
forms, yet the writ of the Olympian Zeus, "the wolfish," Lykaios,
ran everywhere, and he alone judged the winners and losers.

Wifes

In a similar tradition established by his father, Cronus, Zeus soon took
a divine wife. Hesoid says his first wife was Metis,
and from this union Athena was born. His second
wife was Themis, the incarnation of law or equality. The first offspring
was Horae (the Hours or the Seasons). The Horae were three in number:
Eunonia,
Dice and Eirene (Order, Justica and Peace), but the Athenians knew them
as Thallo, Auxa and Garpo. Their names evoked the principle stages of
vegetation:
the plant's spouting, growth, and fructification. However, the
agricultural
aspects of the cults gradually took on social concepts, and the spirits
who principally presided over the land were transformed into social
concepts
pertaining to city life. Then came three daughters known as the Fates or
Morae: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos who determined the destiny of every
human being. This destiny was symbolized by a thread, which the first Fate
drew up from her distaff, the second Fate wound, and the third Fate cut
at the end of the lifespan that it represented was over.

Zeus' third wife, Eurynome, bore him three more daughters, the Graces
(Charites): Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia. Similar to the Horae the
Graces
were vegetation spirits and spread the joys of nature in the hearts of
men.
They lived on Olympus, together with the
Muses,
with whom they loved to sing and dance. Like the Muses they were
companions
of Athena and presided over her feminine tasks.

After this Zeus was companion with his daughter Demeter from which union
Persephone was born. Then he attached to
Mnemosyne
who bore him nine daughters, the Muses. Leto
was his next wife who bore Zeus Artemis and Apollo. Next the god Hermes
was born to Maia, daughter of Atlas. Last in line of Zeus' divine wives
was Hera, his sister, who bore him a son Ares,
the
god of war, and two daughters: Hebe, who
personified
youthfulness, and whose task for a long time was to serve nectar at
celestial
banquets until she became the wife of Hercules;
and Eileithyia, the female spirit presiding
over childbirth.

Even after marrying Zeus was not a faithful husband, for he loved many
mortals. These included Alcmene, who bore him Hercules, and a daughter
Semele
with whom Zeus fathered Dionysus. Furious by
his abandonment, Hera bore the god Hephaestus
by herself without the help of Zeus.